Quebec, Canada, 24th February 2023—Polymorph Games is pleased to announce a roadmap update for its award-winning, medieval city-building game Foundation available now in Early Access on Steam and GOG.
Roadmap Update
The studio is planning five major releases until Foundation’s end of Early Access.
1 - Residential Density and Safety Concept
The next Major Update we are working on is about adding Safety, a tool
players can use to control the density of housing in specific zones.
Safety is also something that will be used and extended by the Castle in
the Kingdom progression path. This will also integrate the walls into
the construction flow. We will provide more details soon.
2 - The Castle (Kingdom Progression Path)
We know you are eager to get your hands on this one, and we are already
working on it. In addition to the new Castle monument, expect more
gameplay options from overhauled military missions (including squads!),
and more interaction with the new safety concept.
3 - Labor Progression Path
This update will round off the final Estate gameplay and its visual
overhaul. It will focus on giving the tools to improve happiness and
taxation capabilities.
4 - Environment Rehaul
As you may know, we are working to revamp our building and environment
visuals: environment biomes, skyboxes, lighting, map edges.
5 - End of Early Access Release
This one will have all the completed game content, with the improved residential zoning, and tier 3 housing.
Along the way toward Foundation's full release, the team will continue
to add minor features, to include new quality of life (QOL) changes as
well as game content.
Some Planned Minor Releases (not in release order)
- Continuous Monument Experience Improvements
- Continuous Map Generator Improvements
- Continuous Quality of Life Improvements
- Continuous Accessibility Improvements
- Continuous Modding Improvements
- Continuous Balancing Improvements
- New Productions Buildings and Production Building Extensions
- Scalable Quests
- New Mandates
- New Information Layers
- Job XP Implementation
- Paved Roads
Some shelved or on hold features
As mentioned earlier, the process of reviewing and completing our game
design had us focus on Foundation’s strengths. But that also means that
unfortunately, some features we have added to the roadmap during the
Early Access won’t make it to the full release, as we realized that they
will not add any significant fun to the game and will create more
micromanagement than we wish to push on the player. We are thus shelving
housing decay, aging and families, and graveyards from the roadmap. The disease feature and vehicles are also postponed, meaning they might become part of the game at some point, but not before the end of the early access. Steam Workshop Integration has also been dropped as we continue to focus on mod.io and its cross-platform modding capabilities.
We know some of you will be disappointed about this news, especially the aging and family, but the average village size in Foundation has a higher population count than first anticipated, and having a feature like this would have brought us on the path of survival, micromanagement and overcomplexity.
We have reasserted our inspirations - Pharaoh, The Settlers and Anno - all games that don’t feature aging and death, but are still unique in their own ways and most importantly, great city-building experiences. With that in mind, we are confident that we are on the right path with Foundation’s design plans.
Putting an end to the Trello and to Mantis Public Bug reporter
As many of you may have realized, the Trello board was not being updated
often. It has shown to be a lot of work to maintain, and it also
creates a divergence with our internal planning tool. Hence why we are
closing the Trello, and will instead share updates and progress on the
roadmap on posts such as this one.
We are also closing our Mantis Public Bug reporter. We realized that the most efficient way to track bugs and get feedback is through Discord or right here on the Steam forums. It is also a better way to filter what is a bug and what is not, because the community usually provides help as well. So don’t hesitate to join our Discord server to share your bugs and feedback!
When are the next updates planned?
As of now, we are currently working on multiple updates:
- 1.9.2 is about an improved budget breakdown and multiple Quality of Life improvements, like the ESC and right-click handling (Estimated Release Date: February 2023)
- Minor Update: We are preparing an experimental build that changes
early progression in the game (In Progress, Experimental in March 2023)
- Taxation will be moved to the Labor progression path
- Tavern will become a need for the commoners
- The early and mid game progression will be reviewed
- Trade revenue will be more generous
- Minor Update: Plains terrain type (flatter) will be introduced in procedurally generated maps (In Progress, Estimated Release Date, March 2023)
- Major Update: Residential Core + Safety (Being prototyped, No ETA yet)
- Major Update: Castle (Kingdom Progression Path) (In Progress, No ETA yet)
Note that this planning is subject to change along the way
Foundation’s official website can be found here: https://www.polymorph.games/en/
About Foundation
Foundation is a grid-less, sprawling medieval city building simulation with a heavy focus on organic development, monument construction and resource management. The game features in-depth resource management akin to the Anno (Dawn of Discovery) series, expertly mixed with city building elements from Settlers, SimCity, and Pharaoh all topped with narrative encounters inspired by Crusader Kings II to create the ultimate medieval ant-farm simulation.
About Polymorph Games
Polymorph Games is a tightly-knit independent studio based in Quebec City, Canada. Since 2016, the studio has been hard at work on Foundation, a unique take on medieval city building simulations. The team's focus is to deliver authentic, deeply engrossing experiences where players can express their creativity through innovative gameplay.
Article by: Susan N.
